Rickie Lee Jones – Pirates (1981)
Rickie Lee Jones – Pirates (1981)
One way or the other, most of Rickie Lee Jones output qualifies as wilfully obscure – never one to take the obvious road, she followed the catchy, acoustic pop of the 1st album’s ‘Chuck E’s in Love’ with this mesmerising, widescreen cinematic extravaganza. In an era notorious for the overblown and vacuous, this was a rare example of the art of the possible. Poetry meeting sonic sculpture, if the word hadn’t already been coined it would have to be described as ‘jazz’. A breathtaking demonstration of how great music can survive great budgets…and transcend all expectations – that this has never been remastered is little short of criminal, the few tracks that have, appear on the ‘Duchess of Cool’ Anthology and demonstrate conclusively that this music was even better than it sounded at the time.
